Prerecorded History

Approximately 12,000-to 15,000-years ago there was no Delaware Bay; it was the Delaware
River, which had not yet carved out its eastern shore to form the Jersey Cape. On the
ocean side, the Atlantic shore was almost 80 miles east of where it is now. The above
is documented by archeology.

What follows has not been documented. It is a theory that I have based on
speculation. The Lenape Nation was not the first humans to inhabit South Jersey. I
believe they crossed the frozen Bering Strait 10,000-to 12,000-years ago. Gradually they
followed the rising sun east. I place them on the banks of the Mississippi about
4,000 years ago.

They continued their eastward trek settling in eastern Pennsylvania and New
Jersey about 2,000 years later. The Lenape conquered the indigenous people
whom I suspect was the Cherokee Nation, which moved south to the Carolinas.

The Lenape was divided into three groups: the Wolf, Turtle, and Turkey
clans that was determined at birth from the maternal side. The Wolf Clan
claimed the land in North Jersey and southern New York. The Turtle Clan
controlled Central Jersey between the Raritan and Mullica rivers and eastern
Pennsylvania. The Turkey Clan had all of South Jersey below the Mullica
River and northeast Delaware.

Each clan was further subdivided into tribes, two of which inhabited the Jersey
Cape: the Tuckahoe and the Kechemeche. Most of the land was controlled
by the Kechemeche in the southern portion of the Cape, while the Tuckahoe had
villages in the northern half of the county.

The Lenape were the first tourists to the Jersey Cape. Each summer different
tribes from the north would summer on the Cape for clamming, fishing and the
cooler climate. Since the natives could not make an 80-mile day trip, there
were no shoebies. Neither were there Friday and Sunday traffic jams on
Route 47 or the Parkway.

The Kechemeche women farmed, growing beans, squash and corn, while the men hunted and
fished. Today the most popular hunting technique in South Jersey is driving deer to
silent standers. The Kechemeche had perfected that method long before the Europeans
arrived. Only they were smarter. They didn't waste manpower on drivers. They
used fire. They torched the pine and oak forest and waited down wind for the deer to pass
by.

Not only did this permit more standers, the smoke from the fire masked one
of the white-tail deer's most valuable defensive assets: scent. This
method had another thing going for it. In the spring the women farmed
the burned-over forest where the sun could reach the emerging plants.

Their lifestyle must have sustained them well. Reports from
the first Europeans indicate that they were lean, well-formed and healthy. The
Kechemeche thrived off the land, bay, ocean and sounds. Although the settlers
believed they had paid the natives a fair price for the land, they did not understand
the Native Americans' values. To the Lenape, no one could own land, anymore
than they could own the water or the sky. What they believed they had sold was
the right to use the land. By 1735 most the Ketchemeche had left the
Cape.

If the early settlers had the foresight to provided the Lenape
with a reservation, think of the impact that might have had on the Cape. Even
U. S. Sen. Robert (The Torch) Torricelli, D-North Jersey, and The Donald wouldn't
be able to prevent a casino on the Jersey Cape.

The First Europeans

In August 28, 1609 Henry Hudson, aboard the yacht Half Moon, was the first
recorded European to see the Jersey Cape. Sailing for the Dutch East India Company,
he was searching for a northwest passage to the Orient. He explored several miles of
shoreline along the Delaware Bay before his 122-ton vessel struck bottom. They
anchored for the night.

In the morning a northwest gale forced him to turn back, round the Cape and
continue north along the coast of South Jersey. There is no record that
he or his crew ever set foot ashore during their brief excursion.

Shortly after Hudson explored the Cape, English navigator Samuel Argall entered the
bay. Assuming it was the northern boundary of the Virginia Patent, he named the bay
after that colony's governor, Lord De La Warre. But it was the Dutch that first
exploited the bay.

Cornelius Jacobsen Mey, after whom the Cape May peninsula is named, explored the area
between 1616 and 1624. Captain Mey and other Dutch navigators were exploring the area
for trading potential for Dutch merchants. For the next 40 years the Dutch would
dominate the Delaware Valley. They built a fort at Swanendael on Lewis Creek across the
bay from the Jersey Cape.

The Dutch, however, were not interested in farming. Their focus was on the trading
potential of fur trapping, fishing, trade and bartering. It was their lack of
permanent settlements, however, that forced them to cede control to the Swedes and the
English.

Before that was to happen, however, Samuel Godyn, for the Dutch West India Company,
built a whaling factory at Swanendael that functioned between 1630 and 1631. They
planned a whaling factory on the Jersey side of South (Delaware) Bay and bought land from
the natives. In 1631 Peter Minuit, director-general of New Netherlands confirmed the
first recorded patent for European ownership of Jersey Cape Property. The factory
never happened.

The period between 1631 and the arrival of offshore whalers from Long Island
in the 1680s is almost a blank page. There is myth and folklore, but little
solid evidence. By 1685, however, the English had settled permanently on
the Cape.

The Lost Years

There is a theory that the English began settling Portsmouth on the Cape in the
1640s. This is based upon a scheme that New Haven voted to approved a plan to settle
and farm in the Dutch-controlled Delaware Valley. Fifty settlers went to Varens Kill
(Salem Creek), 70-miles north of the Cape. Although they planted tobacco, most
returned to New Haven, probably because of New Jersey's high cigarette
tax. Subsequent attempts in the 1650s were thwarted by New Netherlands governor Peter
Stuyvesant.

So, where's the Cape May connection? Folklore has it that some of the
New Haven settlers at Varens Kill hadn't returned to Connecticut, but relocated
on the undeveloped Jersey Cape in which the Dutch seemed to have lost interest. The
earliest recorded Cape May names in the 1680s and 1690s are identical to those
of the families that appeared in the New Haven town records in the 1640s: Osborne,
Mason, Badcock and Godfrey among others. These are also among the same
families that were involved in the aborted Varen Kill settlement.

Despite the lack of records on the Cape during that period, the above concept
is not unrealistic. This is further supported by the early whaling expeditions
from the Hamptons in Long Island. Offshore whalers would arrive in December
and stay until the migrating right whales left the bay in February. It was the
South and East Hampton offshore whalers who made mass relocations to the Cape
in the 1680s and 1690s. I suppose they could no longer afford the Hamptonsthat's
where the money meets the Atlantic.

Further, there were strong ties between New Haven and Long Island. Long
Island, it should be remembered, was part of Connecticut then, not Dutch-controlled
New Netherlands (New York). The same family names that can be found in
New Haven can also be found in the Hamptons. Could the transient whalers
have had family members already settled on the Cape in the 1640s? There
is no proof, but the speculation level runs high.

It should be noted that offshore whaling in the 1640s is not what first comes
to mind at the mention of whaling. Whaling, as we have come to picture
it, consists of three- to five-year voyages aboard large whaling ships that
pursued the right and sperm whales in all the oceans. Offshore whaling,
as the name suggests, is done from 20-foot whale boats launched from the beach.

When a whale was spotted in the bay, the boats would be launched and the sails
raised. When the crew neared the whale, the sail was lowered and a crew of eight
rowed close to the whale. Offshore whaling now becomes similar to blue-water
whaling. The captain harpooned the whale and the whale boat was towed by
the whale until it tired. The crew would move the boat close to the whale, and
the captain would drive a lance into the whale, trying to strike a vital organ.
The angered whale would make another run until it tired again, spouted bloodpillars
of fireand died. The whale would be towed back to the beach where the
blubber and baleen were processed.

The primary whale Long Islanders sought was the right whale, so named because
it floated after it died. Tragically, partly because of offshore whaling,
but mostly from blue-water whaling the right whale is now among the most endangered
of the cetaceans. There aren't many left, particularly in the Atlantic.

Another distinction between blue-water whaling and offshore whaling is that
blue-water whalers were exclusively whalers. Offshore whalers, when there
were no local whales, held two other jobs: farming and whatever craft or
skill they had. Offshore whalers couldn't quit their day job. This concludes
the background on the Long Islanders that may have settled Portsmouth on the
Jersey Cape between the 1640s through the 1690s.

The Whalers

The Long Island whalers who settled New England Town, formerly Portsmouth,
in the 1680s had completed a three-leg odyssey. It began in England. From
there they sailed to New England, moved to Long Island and finally relocated
on the Jersey Cape in West Jersey. They settled north of New England Creek where
they moored their boats.

One factor that greatly influenced settling the Cape was the restoration of Charles II
to the throne. Chuck #2 promoted colonialization and expansionism including seizure
of New Netherlands from the Dutch. He gave his brother James, Duke of York a patent
to the former Dutch territories between the Hudson and Delaware rivers. Duke Jimmy
rewarded his allies James Carteret and John Berkley with a patent for land that included
the Cape.

Carteret name the province New Jersey after the Isle of Jersey where he had
provided refuge for the exiled Stuarts during the English civil war. New
Jersey was divided into East Jersey and West Jersey. The line separating
the two ran northwest from about Tuckerton to Sussex County. The primary
focus was encouraging relocation of the English population from New England
and Long Island.

Disputes and tension developed among the different settlers in East Jersey
resulting in a subsequent relocation to the Cape. East Jersey families involved
in offshore whaling were among the first recorded settlers to move to the Cape
in West Jersey. These families include Hewitt, Leonard, Edwards, Davis,
Spicer, Leaming, Townsend, Whitlock, Richardson, Crawford, Dennis, Stillwell
and Taylor. The same families can be traced earlier to the Hamptons. Some
of their descendants are still living on the Cape.

Not satisfied with the profits in West Jersey, Carteret and Berkley sold their
rights to two Quakers, John Fenwick and Edward Byllynge. Fenwick and Byllynge
had a falling out, possibly because Fenwick couldn't pronounce Byllynge.
Fenwick almost lost his financial interest. William Penn and other Quakers
intervened to protect Fenwick's interests and promote new enterprises in West
Jersey and provide religious refuges.

William Penn contributed to "The Laws, Concessions and Agreements of 1677".
This document provided West Jersey with one of the most liberal constitutions in the
British Empire. It guaranteed religious freedom, trial by jury, elected government and
rights and privileges for freeholders. A freeholder is one who held office or landed
estate free from any limitations as to inheritance rights or social class.

In 1681 Burlington, 100-miles north of the Cape, became the administrative and judicial
center for West Jersey. A court, dominated by Quakers, passed local laws, dispensed
justice, and provided moral and economic guidance. Burlington court records document that
there was a community and government on the Cape between 1685 and 1688.

In 1687 Dr. Daniel Coxe acquired 22 shares in West Jersey. He offered freeholders
a lease of 100 acres with the option in three years to buy the tract in fee simple
acquiring absolute ownership of the land.

New England Town

I don't think there is a precise date when Portsmouth became New
England Town, although it was probably in the 1680s. We will be adding more
information in the future. In the meantime, we decided to have some fun on our
Sausage Making page and posted a paradoxical recipe for 'possum
haggis and 'possum huntin' at New England Town. The real sausage recipes
may be worth the visit if you are disappointed in what is now available at your
local markets. .